Burda 7517

Burda 7517 is done. Pfew!

I may be reconciled with Burda patterns, thanks to a good idea I had before I started the project. 

When I was showed how to make a Burda, I was taught to cut the pattern and then mark a 2cm seam allowance on the fabric. For some reason, that method didn't work for me. The results were baggy, needing lots of alterations and I ended up with a UFO pile of Burda fitting issues.

I am not quite sure of the nature of this thrifted fabric, it looks like "polyester acetate whatever" and is shifty as hell, so I thought that if I marked a 1,50cm, allowance on the paper and then cut it, it would be easier for me. It was and I will be working that way from now on.

The fabric stank so I washed it and it lost all the protective coating that made it sewable, so meet my new friend : Fabulon's fabulous starch!

I don't recommand doing this to every fabric, but on polyester "whatever", starching works. 

I also found a new colored washable glue at the supermarket which I really like because it's cheaper than buying the japanese import one and it was a great help with the zipper.

The dress is comfy, I am not sure I like it all that much, it doesn't fall like on the enveloppe, but it's grown on me. What I like most is the fabric's motif which, a friend rightly pointed out, is layed out like Monet's nenuphars. Wearing a little art makes the day go brighter.

Belted : Vogue 9133

What a difference a belt makes!

Remember this one? I finally got around to take the scraps and make a belt for it. I knew it would make a difference but I didn't expect the dress would become more comfortable to wear!

I am such a procrastinator, it took me a year to make what I made in a half hour before lunch on the counter top! Now I like it so much, I am going to make little belt loops!

In other news, I've been making slow progress on the Burda 7517 dress. I am showing the lovely young ladies next door how to follow a pattern but, I can't really say I am teaching them how to sew as it would be a misnomer, there is very little sewing being done here, lots of unpicking and recutting very shifty material and starching and said dress NOT looking like the envelope and general headaches caused by working with a pattern with no dots and marks. I don't know that they'll learn anything from this experience except patience. I should have made a cotton skirt!

Is there a tutorial for marking a Burda pattern properly? I could use one if I am to use their patterns again. You girls and boys get such lovely results out of them and all I have so far is a raging headache!

Overdressed

I just purchased Burda 7517 (hot results here). It's another attempt at sewing Burda, which I invariably find difficult to sew. But hey! this one has pictures inside with their criptic un-spell-checked French instructions! So I am going to give it a try once again. 

This of course is part of my ongoing attempt to make stuff I wear everyday. But in reality, I want to sew this, from Chanel's Haute Couture collection.

Now where would I wear this I ask you? For, hear my lamentations here, nobody dresses for anything anymore, so I am always overdressed. Even at a recent funeral where I thought it appropriate to wear black when it turned out, nobody else was or, at a recent baptism where I was to become godmother to a wonderful little girl, in the green satin suit that you can see here in action, where people wore jeans. 

Oscar Wilde said: "You can never be overdressed or overeducated." I have lived by that, but really, wouldn't my sewing life be more fun if I was to make this Dior number in pink terrycloth to go to the beach instead?